Vadim Tostanavich
One time captain of the former IND Working Blue, then Resilent(now the Laughting Fox), Vadim now works as captain of the IND Raider while usually offering his services of his ship to Blackjack Shipping and Salvage. History Most of Vadim's life has not been exactly a good one. Or the last a certain five years of it. Being born into a military family with his twin sister Naida, Vadim's life was all about justice, honor...the whole nine yards. To him and like most young Ungstiri, family and his people came first. Having loved every story his father would tell him about the military, that was all Vadim could think about until he reached the appropriate age to join the militia. His sister Naida however, opted to go to medical school, being turned off by military service and violence altogether because of her brother's constant obession with both. Vadim was just another officer in the Ungstir militia, serving as an able officer for two years, a job that Vadim thought he was pretty damn decent at to boot. This all changed in 3001 when Vadim ended up being the sole witness and survivor of a strong-arm money extrosion attempt that ran afoul, resulting in two people's deaths; one being an innocent civilian and the other being a an agent from the now long dead Bormov Syndicate. Being warned that more agents were on the way, Vadim did the only rational thing he could think of; he ran. In Vadim's eyes, he did'nt know who to trust if the agent was wearing a militia uniform. At the time he thought it would better to run now and come back when he could to give the real story. The Five Year Exodus Things didn't go well for Vadim. After stowing away onto a freighter, Vadim spent the next five years on the run, realizing quite quickly that he had a bounty on his head after the first few months of traveling. Over time, Vadim started to devloup an odd and sometimes irratating sense of parinoia, a quirk about him he still has now if not as intense. He spent his time for the next few years working as a dockhand, bartender, ship gunner, or just about anything else that required manual labor. During this time he went under numerous alias's including Pyotr Marx, Gale, Krasniy Oktyabr, and Tarenti Istimov just to name a few. In late 3006, Vadim started to realize his mental instability, just as he was hired onto the Athena on La Terre. Years of running, and practically living a completly foreign life had started to take its toll. It only became worse as bounty hunters began to become aware of his position, leading Vadim to lock himself in a cargo hold. It was there that his sanity came to a heavy breaking point, and instead of putting other crewmembers in harm's way, Vadim left the Athena to spare them the trouble. The last few weeks of freedom Vadim spent in hiding, and trying to come to terms with his personal demons. In the end though, his willpower was not enough to hold him together. As he was contemplating jumping off the high cliff that overlooks Greenville's harbor on New Luna, a bounty hunter named Rillitan was able to convince Vadim not to take his life. At this point, Vadim was a mere shell, not caring anymore what happened to him, which worked well for Rillitan most likely as it was probably the easiest bounty ever. Vadim didn't try to run, fight, or anything. He just didn't care. Prison The next few months Vadim spent in quiet contemplation, trying to put back together his confidence in himself and others, not to mention what was left of his sanity. It worked out decently, and Vadim gained a foothold at picking up the peices. This was only interrupted by the few visits by his lawyer Jimmy, and his sister Naida. The two seemed to be the ones that belived what Vadim had to say, Naida giving all the support she could. After months of sitting in prison with no real interview, he and Jimmy finally received some time with a kommissonar. Seemingly disgusted with Vadim's behaviour and lack of respect to his people, and after some negotiating by Jimmy, the kommissonar released Vadim due to lack of any evidence with only Vadim's story to go on. What he did do as a punishment was Vadim would never be looked upon as a true citizen of the Rock and that he would be known as a tourist from then on. While on the surface, Vadim appeared unaffected by the decison, deep down he would of rather perferred a death sentence. He left as fast as he could, just seeing his home and not being 'one of the Rock' ate at him. Also, not once when he was in prison did his parents see him, seemingly of already denying him of his family. On The Road Again With no where else to go, Vadim went back to doing what he had been doing for quite some time; roam, save now he felt much better it about since he was at least a free man. Since his release, Vadim has done some heavy soul searching, and in the end he decided the only thing he can do is just keep going with what he has, integrity or not. Wether his mind is all there or not is up for conjecture, though Vadim seems to keep in check whatever mental instabilities he has. Hard Eight Vadim spent a good amount of time doing a whole lot of nothing while on the Hard Eight. And while he respected Ren, after months of hearing no word from him, Vadim decided it was time to break out on his own. This was compounded by the fact that had taken on two crewmembers of his own; the returned from the dead Demarian Razorback Cliffwalker and the odd, but interesting Timonae fortuneteller, Aadzrian. With these two now under his own command and not Ren's, he felt that he could not do much for them in terms of employment when Ren left no word of what to do with the Eight or who would be in charge. After a disscussion with Razorback on their options, the journeyed to Tomin Kora to meet with newly appointed head of the Twin Moon casino, afterwhich they came to an agreement and he was given captaincy over the unused ship - the IND Working Blue. Falling Apart Vadim had high aspirations for him, his crew, and his newly aquired ship. From way he saw things, as long as he delivered a decent amount of cargo to Darya, she would let him go about his own personal ventures, the only exception being the crew had to take out an enemy of Darya. Vadim had no problems with that, being the target was the same person who collected on his bounty late last year. Things were going according to plan until Razorback came to realize he couldn't go through with it, for personal reasons. Without telling Vadim, Razorback divulged all the information about the hit, letting it get back to the intended target. With the cat out of the bag, Razorback went back to Tomin Kora without telling Vadim in hopes of explaining things away enough that they wouldn't be killed. No, they weren't, and in some cases it might've been better if they had. Razor was taken in to be one of the combatants in the area, with Aadzrian and Rkagar following suit, each by different circumstances. By that time, Vadim had enlisted the aid of the Faux and her crew, while Vadim himself fell into a heavy depprsion for letting his crew down, not to mention them getting captured. He could not call himself a captain and he hid for a time, devising a way to break his crew out. Before he could enact his plan, the Faux crew with the help of others managed to break them out of their prison, kill Darya, and raze the Twin Moons to the ground. Vadim took a bit solace in that at least his crew was rescued, even if it wasn't by him. This however did leave him stranded on Tomin Kora since the Working Blue's security code had been changed. With the help of an old friend, Vadim got back into the ship, and with its owner dead, and he still technically captain, left him now as the new owner. Raider and Resilient With no crew on the Blue save himself, Vadim has had a difficult time keeping the ship in running condition, but has managed thus far. He follows a rag-tag group of survivors in trying to stay ahead of the Phyrrian invasion, even assisting in flying the Star of Mercy to Nocturn. He currently looks for a new crew, but still keeps close ties with his old one, even though they have found new paths for themselves. Also not too long ago, the Blue had its name changed. Vadim, getting sick of the current name of the ship, and not to mention having bad memories of such a name, took it upon himself to paint over the old one. In honor of his lost home, he re-named the ship the IND Resilient. Vadim later come into an agreement to working with the IND Raider and its crew in whatever ventures they come across, becoming something of a secondary pilot and security officer whenever he wasn't on his own ship. When Ace was held on Tomin Kora, Vadim lent the empty space inside the Resilient for the rest of the Faux, some of who were his own crew when the ship was the Working Blue, and it almost felt like old times again for Vadim. It was short lived however when Ace returned and asked to buy the Resilient off of him. It was a hard choice, and one that Vadim did not relish weighing. He knew he had no crew, and that it would actually be used by the Fauxites, but to Vadim, the Resilient was much more than a ship to him; it was his home, and true freedom to go and do as he pleases without having to answer to anyone. In the end, Vadim's buried sense of good nature got the better of him and he simply handed the ship over to Ace, no questions asked. It tore Vadim apart to let go of the ship, but he knew it would be for a good cause even if that didn't make me sleep better at night. That coupled with the recent news finally reaching him that his sister had perished when Ungstir was destroyed didn't help matters any, so now Vadim drifts inside the Raider, trying to cope with himself, the loss of his ship, his home, and his sister. The Grim Kapitan Vadim had never handled responsibilty all that well. This was evident by his failure as a captain with the Blue and Resilient, never able to keep a full crew at any one point in time for very long. After occupying his time on the Raider, he began to notice that one by one, crew began to drift apart and he wasn't even the person in charge during that time. However, when his captain at the time, Mika, showed up once again it was'nt long before he was offered command of the ship, since Mika had a greater responsibility in running the Junkyard due to Henry Morgan's failing health. At first Vadim wasn't pleased with this aspect, but agreed nontheless. A crew was gathered of old friends and new aquaintences to search for Mika's former ship, the Jackal. After a series of discoveries which lead them to the Preseverance system, the crew stumbled upon one of the few large peices left of Youngster, that being Avalon and quartet of feline-shaped Phyrrian Taskers, which ended up being the source of that they had been searching for. This in turn lead to another signal. This time from the Ariel One system of the Gray Horse. It was during this time that once again, Vadim failed in his command duties, but perhaps not in the same sense as the two previous times. Due to the amount of guilt and depression he had been enduring since the end of the Phyrrian War, it woudln't be wrong to say that Vadim wasn't exactly himself. And it showed. He was too cold, too serious, and always seemingly to be in a grumpy mood. This earned him the title of 'Grim Kapitan' from the majority of the crew and once the mission to search for the Jackal was finished, the crew split apart once again. This didn't help his faith in himself, but he resigned himself to being alone on a ship once again. Driven Idealism All would've most likey been lost for Vadim had it not been for a series of engineering schematics that Mika had handed over to him. At first he didn't think much of them, but the longer he lingered in Avalon, the more he thought. The plans had been for a memorial for all the Ungstiri that had perished during the war. While it was something he could chase after, he began to think in a grander sense. Why build just a memorial when Avalon itself was large enough to house an entire colony and city? Finding perhaps a true calling for himself, he began to start reaching out to those who might be able to assist in him such a venture, using what connections he had to gain some allies while others remained skeptical. Things even develouped further toward the positive side of things when he had discovered evidence that Nadia, his sister and a focal point of his long bout of deppression, was actually alive and well, traveling about with a nameless crew. This only spurred Vadim even more, that indeed there was much left to live, and shades of his former self, before he was a bounty, began to show through the grim and brooding facade. Avalon is and continues to be everything that Vadim strives for, putting all of his effort, energy, and resources into the restoration project, inadvertantly becoming something of a figurehead for the entire operation. Perhaps he is more a leader than he claims to be. Like some have said, he underestimates himself far too much. Even Deeper Everything was going according to plan for Vadim. He was watching Avalon start to take shape everyday, with people joining the cause in the restoration effort. Words could not describe the joy he felt, and the sins committed in his life began to fade away from his heart. It was all going so well. That joy didn't last long. Mystically, through the interference of one renegade Casper'Kamir, Resilience-Ungstir-Two had reappeared. Seemingly back from the grave, Vadim was the first on the scene, but forbade anyone to actually venture into the perhaps haunted asteroid. He never got that chance to investigate, nor to see Avalon finished, the rifts being created by the confused Kamir started to tear the very exsistance of the universe apart. He almost didn't leave Avalon for a time, he searched for Nadia there, hoping that she would be there helping with the effort and he could take her with him, to finally try and save her like he always should've. In the end sadly, he couldn't, and had to leave for Hancock station before it was even too late for him. In his eyes, it was a failure he simply couldn't take anymore. The loss of perhaps the only man he considered family, Aadzrian, was a heavy blow. One that Vadim still lingers from to this day. But now, in Hiverspace, there is no choice for the Ungstiri but to stay alive and survive. And although he wears his wolfish grin like an old hat, there is something definatly broken inside him now behind his eyes. The fall always hurts those to strive so high. He no longer survives because he wants to, no. He does so because he has to. Its not a choice anymore. 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